She Likes To Runnnnnnnnnnnn

[redangel]

Hello. I am currently training a little toy poodle bitch, born and bred on an acreage. Whe I first got her she used to bolt...running round and round the yard for 20mins. Then I could get her, because she was tired. Due to illness she started training late. She has since just turned one, passed two certificate classes at dog school (took 8 weeks) and learns new activites in a session or two. On lead she is the best worker I have ever had....Ive trained 8 dogs. However she has one "life threatening" habit, when given an open door she bolts across the street and into the parkland. No calling will get her back...that is until she is ready...then she does a perfect recall, sitting at my feet in front of me. Like she knows she cant be growled at. Im so scared that she will meet with an accident in her haste to run free. Any ideas? We start off lead at dog school this month so am I expecting too much too soon????

[Reddii]

Sound like you have a potentially serious problem with this one. Is the problem only with your front yard/door or is it every time you let her off lead any where? If it is situational then it's not so hard to manage and/or fix, if it is across the board then I think you need to do some serious focus work with her before thinking about off lead exercises, otherwise you are simply reinforcing that she can bolt away.

My girl is similar in one and only one situation - when I let her off lead out in our (unfenced) front yard. She knows there is a cat 4 doors up and will bolt straight there if given any opportunity.

The last time she did it was about six months ago - simply because she has not had an opportunity to do it in the last six months. She trials in agility and is ready to go in the obedience ring and in any other situation has close to 100% recall so it's not really a problem because I won't trust either of my dogs in the front yard off lead any way. It just means that when Xena gets out of the car it has to be on lead where as CK can be trusted to run straight into the house.

Hope that helps.

[redangel]

Sound like you have a potentially serious problem with this one. Is the problem only with your front yard/door or is it every time you let her off lead any where? If it is situational then it's not so hard to manage and/or fix, if it is across the board then I think you need to do some serious focus work with her before thinking about off lead exercises, otherwise you are simply reinforcing that she can bolt away.

My girl is similar in one and only one situation - when I let her off lead out in our (unfenced) front yard. She knows there is a cat 4 doors up and will bolt straight there if given any opportunity.

The last time she did it was about six months ago - simply because she has not had an opportunity to do it in the last six months. She trials in agility and is ready to go in the obedience ring and in any other situation has close to 100% recall so it's not really a problem because I won't trust either of my dogs in the front yard off lead any way. It just means that when Xena gets out of the car it has to be on lead where as CK can be trusted to run straight into the house.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for that Reddii. When walking on rare occasion off lead she hasnt failed to come back to me. Id admit that I havent really granted her much opportunity offlead though. As she is the first dog ive ever had that has shown a tendancy to run off I was interested to know if other people had experienced this.